THE AMERICAN immigrant saga is an enduring one. The circumstances that brought them here are wide-ranging, but the constant is that this can be the place to come and rebuild your life.
Vilson Qehaja left his war-torn country of Kosovo and arrived in the U.S. in 2000 with nothing. He found a home and a welcoming community in Bowling Green and set about rebuilding his life. After establishing himself in business, he vacationed in Greece and met a woman named Anna, who turned him down for a date three times. Persistence, though, paid off. After a three-year long-distance relationship, Anna — a restauranteur — joined him in Bowling Green, and they married. The couple’s next venture was Anna’s Greek Restaurant & Venue.
As the name indicates, the restaurant serves the fare you’d expect from Greek cuisine, but there are some crucial innovations. Anna has incorporated international cuisine into the Greek table: Italian, German, and French, all fused with a Greek twist. There is an extended menu and another innovation — vegetarian, organic, gluten-free, and dairy-free dishes. Those are the sort of things one doesn’t usually associate with the classic Greek restaurant. Vilson and Anna also make it a point to work with local farmers and suppliers.
Anna’s Greek Restaurant & Venue also played a significant role during the horrible devastation caused by the tornadoes of 2021. Vilson and Anna were setting up for a large wedding reception that was to take place the next day. He left late at night, forgetting his phone, and woke up the next day after the storm, without power or phone service.
The restaurant itself, luckily, had power. The family decided to proceed with the wedding festivities. If this wasn’t a challenge enough, the wedding church, as it turned out, had lost power. Now, Anna’s Restaurant had to host not just the wedding party but the ceremony itself. This was a daunting task, as Vilson recalls.
“The internet wasn’t working, [and] the phone lines weren’t working. But luckily, I sent text messages to as many people as I could — employees and friends — to come help.”
The wedding took place, which felt like a “rare, interesting dream.” But there was a more considerable scramble to come. Because of the tornado, the community had undergone widespread devastation. To Vilson, this was horribly reminiscent of the wartime destruction he’d experienced. Most of the area’s restaurants weren’t functioning, and the Red Cross contacted them. Could Vilson and Anna fill the gap?
There was a need for 1,200 meals a day for the next two weeks, starting immediately. The usual capacity for the restaurant was 1,500 meals a week. Without hesitation, Vilson and Anna plunged into action, obtaining special equipment, including the hard-to-find military pot they needed to handle the unprecedented volume. They worked all through the night the first night and then kept up an unimaginable pace for the next 12 days.
“It was a challenge for us, and I don’t know where we got the energy, but we made it happen,” said Vilson.
“Making it happen” was an understatement. The restaurant stayed open during the hectic season of Christmastime. Vilson and Anna went ahead with their usual schedule of lunch and dinner. The venue hosted parties and weddings. Vilson and Anna averaged around three hours of sleep a night, waking up around 3 a.m., going to the restaurant at 4 a.m., and cooking until 9 a.m. to prepare those 1,200 meals. The meals were then packed up and distributed to the volunteers. At 11 a.m., the restaurant opened for lunch. Their working day ended 12 hours later.
This trial by fire created lasting bonds with the volunteers and the community, so much that the town of Bowling Green has officially recognized it.
Vilson and Anna didn’t publicize what they’d done. They simply sprang into action immediately and worked at the superhuman level. Both Vilson and Anna were and are more than eager to aid the their community. This is also part and parcel of the immigrant ethos.
“I know how it feels to be helped,” Vilson recalls. “It’s a totally different feeling when you get to help others.” There is always that automatic instinct to help. “The good you do always comes back,” Vilson wisely concluded. GN
